tisfactory sort
of way. I felt as if we were, figuratively speaking, sitting on the
edges of our chairs. It was better than nothing, but it was not a real
meeting. The next year we were together again, but this time it was
before our own blazing apple log. We did not talk so much as we had done
before, but we were silent a great deal more, which was better. For in
really intimate communion, silence is the last, best gift, but it cannot
be forced, it cannot be snatched at. You may try it, but you grow
restless, you begin to consider your expression, you wonder how long it
will last, you fancy it may seem to mean too much, and at last you are
hurried over into talk again. But before a fire all things are possible,
even silence. Chance acquaintances and intimate friends fall alike under
its spell, talk is absolutely spontaneous, it flows rapidly or slowly,
or dies away altogether. What need for talk when the fire is saying it
all--now flaring up in a blaze to interpret our rarest enthusiasms, now
popping and snapping with wit or fury, now burning with the even heat
of steady, rational life, now settling into a contemplative glow of
meditation.

In the circle of the hearth everything is good, but reminiscences are
best of all. I sometimes think all life is valuable merely as an
opportunity to accumulate reminiscences, and I am sure that the precious
horde can be seen to best advantage by firelight. Then is the time for
the miser to spread out his treasure and admire it. I remember once
Jonathan and I were on a bicycle trip. My chain had broken and we had
trudged eight long, hot, dusty miles to the river that had to be crossed
that night. It was dark when we reached it, and it had begun to rain, a
warm, dreary drizzle. As we stumbled over the railway track and felt our
way past the little station toward the still smaller ferry-house, a
voice from the darkness drawled, "Guess ye won't git the ferry
to-night--last boat went half an hour ago."

It was the final blow. We leaned forlornly on our wheels and looked out
upon the dark water, whose rain-quenched mirror dully reflected the
lights of the opposite town. Finally I said, "Well, Jonathan, anyhow,
we're making reminiscences."

This remark was, I own, not highly practical, but I intended it to be
comforting, and if it failed--as it clearly did--to cheer Jonathan, that
was not because it lacked wisdom, but because men are so often devoid of
imagination save as an adornment